It Begins

[swellcast]

Permit me to chime in on the logo discussion...

What we have here is American college football jersey meets hipster line art detail taken too far. The slab serif doesn't look so bad IMHO, but 'ASP', set in what looks like modified HF&J's Idlewild, lacks any personality whatsover.

More importantly, it doesn't feel like it will hold its own among sponsor logos.

I can see an attempt to mimic the minimal aesthetic that came out of the mainstream surfing boom over the last few years. Great for fleeting fashion and new-wave soul surfers, but surely not for the sports peak body. I'd suggest the ASP needs to convey authority, and this misses the mark.

[steve shearer]

yep and yep.

three dud contests in a row. this thing is dribbling to a conclusion.

Watching Parko's World Title Defence slipping away in knee high so-cal weak wind-swell was just undignified.

And having Slater scrapping around in the worst kind of rippy onshore close-outs looking for something more than a four was like watching Ali getting slapped by a bum. It ain't right.


Here's a tip Mr Speaker. Schedule Bali for October. Give people some sunshine and actual proper surf to look at.

That dreary European light and phlegmatic close-outs are a turn-off.

Put another Southern Hemi comp on in June/July. J-Bay would be nice, if the locals would have it.

[pinhead]

Put another Southern Hemi comp on in June/July.

How about Lennox?

[crabmeat thompson]

... this thing's dying anyway, Shearer.

The big wave world tour is where it's at, imo. Capture the essence of the paddle session at '12 Cloudbreak, while the pros watched on. Capture that, market that and embrace those guys who do that. Because, well, that is extraordinary.

Watching guys flail about in 2-3 foot slop at Rio, Portugal, California, France and Snapper is pretty fcuking far from entertaining. When Slater leaves there will be zero, and I repeat zero interest in the tour and anything they are attempting to do. Right now Zosea look like nothing more than a bunch of suited up, faked-tanned corpos lunging for one last great cash grab before Slater's tour flame is extinguished forever.

Stop trying to deliver a sport that nobody outside of it cares about, to the mainstream masses. Surfers by and large, as greatly protective human beings by nature, greatly resent this notion. So failing to deliver surfing to the mainstream coupled with alienating masses of those who already currently surf, is a recipe for failure. As the ASP has found out over the last decade.

The BWWT will be different. Watching real life and death situations will have a broad based appeal to anyone who a) has eyes; b) likes frequent carnage and c) likes their sport to have the possibility of immediate death at any given time.

It benefits surfers too. Because unlike the ASP tour, no one from the mainstream will be hurrying out the door to purchase a jet ski and a 5'8" MC tow board and go chase mountains with it.

[alakaboo]

Braithy if you look at the web feed from the last couple of contests, they aren't even providing the sport to the people who are currently interested.

To me, the new logo looks like a wrapped block of Sex Wax as seen from above. You've got the circle bit, which is a pretty straight rip off, and then you've got the crinkly bit around the outside representing the plastic.
See?

Yep, and the rising sun from the AI shorts and a softened wave from the QS logo.

But to me the first thing it looked like was a comb jelly.

Seemed fairly apt. No central brain only dispersed neurons, moving where the winds and tide take them, but voracious predators that can consume anything smaller than them.

[el rancho]

oh and they dropped jbay but kept rio because the at almost all the stops the cities/govt hosting the events are kicking in a huge chunk of cash to keep it viable.

no cash splash from the municipality at Jbay so they canned it.

[bobjs]

IMHO, the last 3 events of the WCT should be just be the top 8-16 surfers and those events be double points or something so the crown cannot be won earlier in the season.

This way, the events can be run in a shorter time frame at the peak of condtions worthy of these guys and the title. Recreational surfers mostly don't even bother going out in crap waves yet our world title can be determined in onshore closeouts

Also, 3-4 days of competiton can get pretty tireseome - you can even hear the boredom in the commentators' voices. Packer worked this out 30+ years ago with the creaion of the one day cricket series.

While I'm at it, IMHO one of the CTs should be at Sunset. Footage of Sunset (at least when it is big) manages to purvy the true nature and appeal of surfing - the size of the lineup, the power, and the randomness of the waves. This is often lost in webcasts- even Pipe can sometimes look like a beachbreak on the webcast even though by all reports it is a ridiculously heavy wave.

[alakaboo]

It was all going so well up until you mentioned Sunset.

Sunset in full charge is an awesome spectacle, but it doesn't film well.

Love the other ideas, though. Mid year cut might put some more interest into the first half as well.

[Nick Carroll]

It was all going so well up until you mentioned Sunset.

Sunset in full charge is an awesome spectacle, but it doesn't film well.

Love the other ideas, though. Mid year cut might put some more interest into the first half as well.

I beg to disagree.

You wanna have a look at ABC's incredible helicopter footage of big Sunset in the 1966 and 67 Duke Classics. There isn't a surf movie oft he time that can hold a candle to it.

It's all in how you shoot it.

[crabmeat thompson]

Sunset. Yes! imo, the last 3 events on tour should be all triple crown events. Haleiwa, Sunset and Pipe.

If you're going to have a world champion, make them master or at the minimum, endure Hawaii for everything it offers.

[alakaboo]

You reckon Zosea is going to spring for 4 days of helicopters?

[crabmeat thompson]

Ok , honest question....too anyone

I was under the impression zossea pretty much bankrolled this years tour because the big three surf company's just didn't have the coin

I was also under the impression zossea acquired the asp for free
Basically

Because they couldn't sell it

Indeed lucky give it away

P.s braithy.... Got a link too the big wave tour

There's not much there Fong (first 2 events cancelled due to lack of swell -- think the Eddie,) but that'll change soon, I reckon.

http://www.bigwaveworldtour.com/

[andy2476]

You reckon Zosea is going to spring for 4 days of helicopters?

Don't have to. Drones will do the job

[bobjs]

Sunset in full charge is an awesome spectacle, but it doesn't film well.

[Nick Carroll]

Ok , honest question....too anyone

I was under the impression zossea pretty much bankrolled this years tour because the big three surf company's just didn't have the coin

I was also under the impression zossea acquired the asp for free
Basically

Because they couldn't sell it

Indeed lucky give it away

P.s braithy.... Got a link too the big wave tour

OK honest answer fong.

This was the last year under the old arrangement, which has been in place since 2001 with some tweaks in 2009.

Under the old arrangement, ASP was a company co-owned by the surfers and the WCT event franchisees.

The event franchises were held by a range of entities, mostly various surf companies other than the Brazil event (owned by a promotions company based in Brazil) and the Pipe event ( part of the Triple Crown which is owned by a group of Hawaii and US based businessmen)

The franchises were held nominally on the basis of five year leases, however these were infinitely variable since the Money Talked so to speak. Like nobody taxed Quik for taking on the US East Coast franchise (NYC) then dropping it cold, because everyone involved understood Quik was under the gun and the vast sums involved in running NYC were not tenable for them.

The franchises cost between $75,000 and $100,000 in licensing fees to the ASP per year.

The ASP also taxed the surfers around $4000 a year for WCT seedings and WQS guys paid membership plus event entry fees.

The franchisees for their commitment got to run an event to ASP specs. They could draw in whatever sponsorship help they liked. They had to use the ASP event formulas and judging panel and provide ASP endorsed prize money guarantees including paying the prize money into a trust account 90 days in advance. They held all the media rights for the event by default. Over time, with webcasts and prize money increases and so forth, WCT events came to require budgets of between $2.5 and $3 million. The franchisees footed those bills this year the way they have in past years.

It had become clear to the ASP board that this system was all on the edge of falling apart. Event costs were spiralling and the surf industry was struggling. The WCT had become a $40 million a year operation but the people paying for it were running out of money.

The board was primed for some entity to come along and offer to take over the operation. ZoSea was just one of several organisations that were pitching for control of the organisation's business. Their offer was accepted by the ASP because they had a proven interest in the sport via Terry Hardy and because they were the most persistent suitor. Also because they were able to show a significant bankroll from the Florida based billionaire Dirk Ziff.

In 2014 ZoSea and the ASP will pretty much become one. They have spent the past year trying to figure out how to run events. Next year, they will proceed to do so. The current franchisees have first refusal right on the naming rights of the events, which will go for a million apiece. ZoSea's business model depends on them being able to ge good media deals and leveraging them into global WCT sponsorships in a range of areas, you know, cosmetics, airlines, car companies, energy drink cos etc.

The task they face is enormously complex. Every one of the WCTs is an organism all its own. Each has developed over years of complex deal making, local involvement, weird half hidden deals, all kinds of stuff. You might conceive of chucking it all away and starting again new broom style but that's just not realistic, not without a very acute idea of what you're chucking away in the first place.

Most of the current ASP staff will remain in place in 2014 and that might help the ZoSea crew navigate the waters a bit. They do face some pretty epic passive aggression from parts of the surf industry who feel a bit pissed off about it all. The surfers all seem pretty much on board but that could well be due to ZoSea's slick sales job.

Where's the money I say. Watch the money, follow it. If ZoSea can't find it, there'll be hell to pay.

[alakaboo]

What's Plan B?

You reckon Zosea is going to spring for 4 days of helicopters?

Don't have to. Drones will do the job

I have some work questions about using drones, do you use them?
Did you go to that memorial thing for the ABC pilot?

[andy2476]

I have worked with them a bit and am doing some training to use them. More so in the camera side rather than the actual piloting part as that requires training that is basically a chopper license .

No I didn't go. Was not able to make it

[alakaboo]

Yeah, the licensing stuff is crazy.

The bloke I talked to has a pilot's licence and a couple of CASA and international things as well.
Plus getting permission to use them anywhere public is pretty intense, let alone taking pictures.